Dr. Dobb's Journal January 2004
Now that it's clear that wannabes and sales-and-marketing types nearly ruined the technology business because they just wanted to get rich quick—and never loved or understood the technology they were over-hyping—the engineers are reasserting themselves and retaking Silicon Valley.
—Steve Lohr, The New York Times, October 26, 2003.
Nerf, Nadia: This dough grrl may look soft and puffy, but she is an agile developer. Codename: Bear Claw.
Washington, Mustafa Littlefoot: Token ethnic. A smoke-test specialist with near-psychic debugging powers.
Spazz: The weakest link. A brilliant coder, but so addicted to Starbucks that he'd fork the kernel for a Frappuccino.
Thyme, Justin: Team leader. Think Jack Black on Jolt.
Nine AM, in the parking lot. Staying up until the suits would be at their desks was just a matter of dosage adjustment, but this sunlight business is way rude. Good thing they're all wearing their MIB shades.
Spazz: "Did you ever see so many Beemers and Jags?"
Justin: "People, people. Listen up. Synch your iPods. It's crunch time." As they rush through the door, they break in four directions, instantly scoping the layout. Where the beanbag chairs and foosball table used to live, the space is filled with sales sluts on cellphones, management drones looking out of doorways, dilberts at desks. The suits don't grok what's happening; most of them have never seen a programmer before.
The team moves into position. Justin and Mustafa duck behind filing cabinets on opposite sides of the room, while Bear Claw checks out the couch under the front window, and Spazz drops to his belly and rolls under a desk.
One of the dilberts looks up from his spreadsheet. "The homeless shelter is in the next block."
Bad move, luser.
With a fierce sweep, Bear Claw knocks a dozen pieces of paper off his desk. The room erupts in chaos, and several other dilberts look up. As dilbert number one dives for his precious papers, Bear Claw executes a perfect mid-air slow-mo turn that lands her prone on the couch.
"Go, go, go!" Justin shouts. But only one voice answers him. It's up to Mustafa and Justin now: Spazz is wedged under the desk and Bear Claw has scored a bag of barbecue chips from somewhere.
Mustafa: "Justin, to your right!"
Through a doorway on the right, Justin sees the tell-tale glow of adequate lighting. It's the Hype Core itself, the Marcom Department. If they can make it through that doorway, they'll have a chance of taking out the FUD Generator and rendering the suits powerless.
Justin doesn't pause a microsecond.
"Go for it, Mustman," he snaps back.
Mustafa edges toward the doorway, peers around the corner.
And catches a break. Literally. Apparently, it's break time in the Hype Core. The room is empty.
He eases inside, leaving the outer room in Justin's capable hands. He wipes sweat from his brow. No telling how long the break will last. He has to figure out how to take out the FUD Generator. But wait—that's not enough! Unless he can eliminate the entire Org Chart, the drones will be able to restart the FUD. He doesn't know where the Org Chart is kept. He's never even seen the thing. And he has less than 15 minutes. Probably a lot less. Seconds tick by as Mustafa weighs his options.
Suddenly the door at the far end of the room opens.
"Musty, c'mon. I found the vending machines."
It's Bear Claw. He follows her, keeping a wary eye out for suits.
No suits. Down a hall, through an empty room. No suits. Into the vending machine room. No suits.
"Bear Claw, where are the suits?"
"They all left. Quit. Turns out they were only hanging on because there was an uptick in the NASDAQ." She feeds coins to the Dorito god and it disgorges a bag of goodies.
"And it ticked back down?"
"Apparently, they were riding on an echo bubble."
Justin walks in and delivers a surgical tap to the side of the Coke machine. Then another. Then kicks it. And finally drops in some change. The machine rewards him with a Mountain Dew.
"It's over, people," he tells them. "Not everything went our way"—he frowns at the Mountain Dew—"but we're in charge again. Let's get coding."
Michael Swaine
editor-at-large
mike@swaine.com